Every once in a while he has an insight into how it all works, and he struggles, to get it all down, before the insight fades away. The rest of the time he lives in ignorance, or maybe not so much ignorance as distraction. It's hard to keep significance in mind.
He's half-awake, lying in bed late into the morning, not wanting to get up. He hears a noise out in front of the house, so he forces himself out of bed, because he can't identify the source of the noise, and so he becomes worried that it might be something important. He approaches the front window in the dining room cautiously, because he doesn't want to be seen looking out, in case someone who knows him sees him looking and expects him to come out to talk to them. He peers cautiously at the edge of the window out into the yard where he catches the briefest glimpse of a man just before he disappears around the side of the house with a weed trimmer. That was the noise, a whiney gas motor. He assumes it's his neighbor from across the street who has come over to trim his weeds. He'll do this kind of thing on occasion, even though he tell him not to, because he feels that it is his responsibility and if he doesn't do it, if his yard is a disgrace, then he deserves to be humiliated in that way. He's torn between going out to talk to him, to thank him and to try to persuade him not to do chores for him that he is loathe to do himself, between that and going back to bed, because he wants to hide away, and because although he's not sleepy, he's still tired, je suis fatigue, he thinks, that expression says it best. The French, he thinks, always were able to pack more into their language than the English ever could. But ensuing events keep him at the window wondering.
He sees, across the street, a woman coming out of his neighbor's house and walking up the walk, a very large woman, not fat, but big, tall, broad-shouldered, the image Janet Reno comes into his mind and he compares the two women. This woman is bigger, more plain-faced, more handsome than pretty than Janet, yet attractive despite her size and plainness--to him, anyway. She looks around as if she's lost, and then she heads for a car parked a few feet down the street. He wonders who she is, and he concludes that she's staying with his neighbor, some relative or friend, and maybe it's the neighbor that she's looking for, although he has no evidence for this at all, except perhaps an intuition.
As he watches her attention being drawn to a young, attractive girl on the porch two houses away with her back to them, and especially as he sees appearing from behind a tree and trailing along behind the woman as if she's a puppy dog scurrying after her master, a younger girl with long brown hair, very long, waist length, he feels a mystery imposing itself upon him, and he begrudges it trying to stir in him an awakened attitude.
Then, from out behind the houses across the street, an even younger girl appears, barely old enough to be called a young woman, yet demonstrating it fully to the world, being bare-chested, sporting small breasts which are a glorious sight to see, as if she were one of those small angels in a renaissance painting. She carries herself as if she is a nature princess, a daughter of the earth goddess, so that he has to do a reality check to make sure he is not still back in the sixties. In a stereotypical manner, he rubs his eyes, trying to force the remaining bits of sleep out of them. She half-prances across the yards, joining another bare-chested girl half-her size and age, too small to be imprudent, who appears as if out of nowhere. He thinks aloud, "What the hell is going on?"
The neighborhood begins to animate itself, coming to life as if he had only just begun to notice activity that had been going on all along. Landscaping men, like a team of ragtag CIA agents, are combing across lawns with a sundry of devices, some of which he recognizes, and some of which appear to be unique. The weed-whacker, which he still hears at a farther distance off in back of his house, is one of them, the first known, to him, all but drowned out now by the other machines since started or previously unheard. He hurries into the bedroom to get out of his sweats and into Levis and a t-shirt, because this is the only way he feels comfortable meeting the world, and he intends to go out, to see what's up.
A minute later, as he comes out of his front door, as if the hair stands up on the back of his neck, he understands that he should have stayed inside. The men have zeroed in on his property, and others, younger guys, and young boys, are heading up the street in his direction. The weed-whacker has worked his whacking way back down the outside edge of his lawn to a point opposite his door as others stand around nearby examining the shrubbery. He can feel the question on his face as he watches the band of approaching gypsy-workers walking up his driveway. The man at the shrubs says to him, as if he actually understood what was happening, "They're pretty far gone. They've been let go too long."
He has no response to that remark. He could not think of the first thing to say that would have been appropriate, and so he says instead, "What the fuck are you doing here?" The man ignores what he himself thinks is a sane question, but instead looks at him askance, as if he's speaking German.
The guy pisses him off, with his dismissal. He begins to boil in response. He recognizes this dynamic. It's an old one he'd learned through bad experience to avoid. But he doesn't avoid it. The guy is in his yard, after all. He approaches him directly as another, younger, man comes up the walk and settles in behind him.
"I asked you what the fuck you're doing," he demands of the man who doesn't want to look at him. But the other, younger, man does, straight. Until he turn his attention fully to him, not wanting to allow his stare. The younger man says something that he does not comprehend, something smart, something sarcastic. But he's beginning to boil over, and when that happens, he fails to comprehend even the simplest signals. He wants these people out of here, he wants them gone, they are invaders, they threaten the security of the property he has set up as his protectorate.
He stares at the younger man, noticing that he's big, not tall, but huge-shouldered. He's that kind of guy who played football in high school, and maybe college--no, not college, not this guy, but by his build he looks like he could have if only he had known that you didn't have to be smart to go to college if you could play ball. He doesn't look smart enough even to have known that simple fact of life. Then he makes what could turn out to be a big mistake by asking the younger guy what he said. Or rather, not asking him, but telling him. "What did you say," he says. But to his surprise, the younger guy looks away.
He takes a moment to examine the excitement that wells up in his chest. The guy could have continued his challenge, he could have simply told him in a straightforward way what he had said, making it known that he was not to be trifled with, in which case, being in the frame of mind he has chosen to be in, yes chosen, it is a choice, after all, he knows that now, despite the hormones raging through his system and the blood pounding in his ears, despite the emotion welling up, the felt threat converting itself into aggression, he has learned that it is a choice he makes, after all, being in that frame of mind, or body, or soul that he chooses to be in, he would have no alternative (of course, he really would) but to try to convince the guy that he is not to be trifled with either, that despite the fact that he is not so young a man any more, that he has learned a few things, been trained in a few more places and skills that the guy has no idea of, at least that is what he always used to hope, when he became entangled in these types of situations, and sometimes it turned out to be true, and sometimes it did not.
But the guy chose for him. He chose to be intimidated. He relishes the moment as he wonders why so big a guy would let him do that to him. It's the eyes, he knows. He remembers seeing the fear in those eyes. He felt that fear. It was his own, transferred. The guy doesn't understand that, how he could project it onto him and have him believe that it was his. He doesn't know how intensity in an abandoned moment can turn a fear into a presence of dangerous intent. He himself doesn't know it either. He just does it, and only examines it after the fact.
Other less hostile and less intimidated yardmen who are gathering around try to explain to him what it is that they are trying to do, but he doesn't care. Apparently, he concludes later, it has something to do with bugs. He doesn't care about bugs. Let them be and, more or less, they let you be. So what if the whole neighborhood is threatened with some plant-killing infestation. If the plants can't manage to survive, they deserve to be wiped out. Law of the jungle. Survival of the species. The weak die out; the strong prosper. He doesn't really believe this, that is, he does and he doesn't. He knows it's the scientific truth as it applies to plants and animals, but we humans can have a higher agenda, which he believes in more. He's a liberal, usually, when he's calm and sedated. It's only when he feels threatened, when people get too close, that he regresses. But as far as insects go, who gives a fuck? He is a philosophical (as opposed to a dogmatic/theological) Christian, but not when it comes to bugs. Let them be, stomp them out, he doesn't care. But don't do it in his yard.
Women are beginning to arrive. Women always accompany the gypsy caravans. The men get the idea, after it sinks in, that he doesn't want to know about their bug problems, that he doesn't want them there. And so they leave. The women, having arrived later, are slower to go. But he doesn't mind the women being here, and probably they sense this. Women are smarter in this way. They intuit better. The kids, the female kids, are gathering, and among them are the two bare-chested nymphets.
One of the older women is hanging around by the side of the house, examining a bush. He doesn't want her there, but he doesn't say anything, because he doesn't want her leading the younger women and the nymphs away, which he knows she will do, because older women in this nomadic society always lead the younger, and this lady is a grandmother, for sure.
He still feels the imperative to be away from all of them, but the conflict is beginning to settle in, especially as the bare-chested babes sit down on the steps to the porch and act as if they're going to stay a while.
A dog comes up onto the porch, a small, orange-haired shaggy breed, incredibly cute. Her name is Ruthie, he knows, because the kids call her to come to them, to stay off the porch. But she fails to heed their advice. Despite the fact that they know he's been acting like a bastard, they hang around, but they seem to be saying by their behavior toward the dog that they are cautious. They seem to be in conflict too. He appreciates their empathy--or is it his?
The dog settles over by the railing, where a rail along the porch divides it from the deck. Then he see what demands her attention. Another dog lies there, so skinny that he is easily overlooked behind the rail. Ruthie lies with her chin on her paws, her nose almost touching the nose of the other dog, which lies on its side. Something about that other dog doesn't look, or feel, right. He walks over to it to examine it more closely. It hardly looks alive. The kids, sensing his concern, follow him. And so does the old lady. He bends down over the dogs. He pets the lying dog. It hardly moves. "Hey, boy," he says. "What's the matter?" He wags the tip of his thin tail just once. Ruthie whines almost imperceptibly. He sits down beside her.
The old lady arrives beside them.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
The kids have been trying to coax Ruthie over to them. They have come only halfway across the deck and have stopped, wary.
"Well," he says, looking up at the old woman, looking into her old eyes, "If I had to guess, I'd say he was dying. That's why Ruthie won't go with the kids. She knows it."
"Oh, no," the old woman says, wanting, he feels, to convince him with her demeanor that what he says is not true. But he knows that it is, he's certain of it, and it is only to save her feelings that he said he guessed.
They begin to talk about death, in vague and non-specific ways, until he understands her fear. The conversation grows more serious as she tries to lure him into telling her what she thinks, or feels, he knows. He's aware from the start of what she's trying to do, and he hesitates, partly because he's not yet fully recovered from the bout of aggression, nor from the reasons for it, his perception of invasion, and partly because he does not wish to adopt the role of wise old guru, at least not with these young and impressionable kids around. He doesn't want to be thought of in that way, or maybe he does and guards against it, against becoming another Maharishi Yogi. But gradually, she teases him, expertly, as he will later see it, into talking to her about what he thinks is the truth of life and death. She accomplishes this by talking briefly about the dying dog. And then she allows an awkward silence to develop.
"What's his name," he asks.
"Snake," one of the kids says.
"Snake," he says, and one of his tiny ears perks slightly. "How ya doin?"
One of the kids asks, in that way that kids have of being perfectly blunt, "Do dogs go to heaven?"
One of the other kids says, "No."
And a third says, "Yes they do."
"My father says they don't."
They all turn to him. How can he disappoint them?
"Well," he says, "Considering the nature of dogs, how perfectly loyal they are, how they are, each and every one, good, I don't see how God could refuse them."
"But some dogs are mean."
"Yeah. But they're just animals. They don't know they're mean. They're just reacting to their circumstances and the way they've been trained. I imagine that when a dog dies and shows up at the gates of heaven, God just waves them through without ever asking them any questions at all. But when men who owned dogs come to heaven and try to get in, God asks them, 'What did you think you were doing training those dogs to kill?' I think all dogs go to heaven 'cause they can't help being what they were trained to be, but men who train dogs to kill, or who mistreat them, go to hell." Some of the kids laugh, as if he's telling a joke. Some of them, the older ones, tacitly agree. They have become assembled on the porch in a semi-circle around the old woman and him.
"Do you really believe that?" the old woman asks, as the kids' attentions wander.
He shakes his head slightly, indicating that he does not.
"Tell me what you really believe."
"Oh, I don't know. I don't think so."
"Do you think there's a heaven?"
He had been determined not to get roped in, but suddenly he's aware that this is not a casual interest, that she is searching for truth, real truth, and has been searching for a while. He begins to suspect that she had been hanging around at the side of the house waiting to talk to him. He doesn't know how she could have known that he has a philosophy of death--or rather, of non-life, or maybe she didn't know and he's just paranoid, a state he always enters after cortisol-related residue has been flushed out of his system.
He becomes aware for the first time that the other women who were hanging around are attending to their conversation from the porch.
"If you want to," he says to the old woman, "we can go somewhere private and talk." The other women seem disappointed, or is it his imagination?
They go around to the back porch, and he begins to tell her about what he thinks death is, or isn't.
"So you don't think we go to heaven?"
"No."
"Or anywhere?"
"Nowhere. When we die, we're dead."
"How sad."
"Not really. You have to learn how to look at it."
"How?"
"This is hard. It's a hard thing to explain."
"Please try."
He hesitates, because although at times he can speak quite prolifically on the subject, at other times, he's slow, ponderous, and dull. These are the highlights of the argument that he laid out before her, in a more colloquial, less scientific, and more piecemeal way:
When a dog dies, it ceases to be; there is nothing that remains of what it was psychologically, egotistically. The same is true for humans.
But what about people who say they experienced life after death, who've died and come back?
They never died. They only came very close. He lays out the argument of oxygen deprivation to the brain, one of the symptoms of which is the perception of a tunnel of light.
But they say they left their bodies.
Oh, he believes people can project themselves out of their bodies, but only while they are alive. People are deceived in believing that they exist within a finite body. They exist as an integral part of a vast cosmic quantum field that they can utilize when they are alive and conscious, and which they certainly utilize unconsciously all the time. Psychic phenomena, once you get past the hype and sham, can be very real, but it's too subtle to be logically perceived as yet. Society needs a better, more technological science.
So when we're dead, we're dead.
Yes.
It's a terrible fate then.
Not really. It doesn't have to be. Look at it this way. The dog, like a person, is a living thing. It has a life force that it intuitively knows as itself. But when it's gone, it doesn't know it. When you're dead, you just don't know.
When he thinks of himself, who he is, he thinks back over his personal history and he begins to strip away all of the personal stuff, trying to get to the "truth" beneath it, that common denominator that everyone is. Eventually, he runs out of "details" in his life and understands that he is exactly that life force that everything else also thinks it is. What is this life force? It's the same stuff that everyone is made up of, the matter-energy field, expressed in a particular place and time. The sense of "I" he has is this life force, and it is the same sense of "I" that everything else has.
When he dies, his ego dissipates. Maybe it hangs around a while beyond death. Probably it does, which accounts for near-death experiences of people who "return." (Since they were never really dead, there's nowhere to return from.) Medical Death is not necessarily true death. Don't forget that physicians used to bleed people for their health. No one can seriously believe that doctors know when consciousness permanently ceases. The choice of "brain death" is arbitrary. Probably, people are conscious, if they are at all at the moment of death, for many minutes, even hours, after the "life processes" cease to function.
But the sense of 'I' that he was, that sense beyond ego, that sense he found when he stripped away the personal 'me', continues on, in all other living things. And everything is "living" in this sense. Everything, including people, are composed of the residue of cosmic processes. The sense of 'I', the life force, permeates the universe. That which he is, you are too. He is alive, after he is dead, in you.
The best we can hope for after we are dead is that people remember who we are. When we remember someone, we live their life, their ego, again, like having them alive again, in part, in us. (We can never know the totality that someone really was. Even the most prolific writer leaves a large part of himself unwritten.)
The universe before the big bang is a single non-dimensional point: everything that exists now exists within that one point, and that one point is 'God.'
We are God's consciousness/awareness, here and now, in this particular place and time. To want to be any more is merely human arrogance, finite creatures wishing to be gods.
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